Probably most of the stuff I say has been said in one form or other, but since opinion sharing is encouraged and invited, I'll go right ahead.
I personally don't mind the change because, as (hopefully informed) people explained, from the pragmatic viewpoint it's the same - ads, no matter the form, help cover the cost of OCR-related expenses. However, I do understand why there are people who do not share this view, because I have come to learn that Youtube ads specifically is a very sensitive topic, both for video/content makers and those who watch it.
I agree with sir_nuts' statement "Perception != Reality", but I don't think the perception part should be looked down at as unimportant. This whole issue mostly has to do with the way community perceives this change, which has a huge impact on OCR (since the remixes are mostly produced by the community). In light of that, I can understand the staff trying to objectively test the waters and appreciate them encouraging discussions about the issue. This will provide them with knowledge of how to strike the sweet spot of both having high community morale/support and also reliably covering the costs (both of which I believe are extremely important).
I also think the official non-profit status would be a step in the right direction and restore faith of people who might've lost it during this event.
What I am a bit concerned about is the nature of Youtube ads. I believe they do make the music listening experience worse. @zircon asked whether ads on a page would be better than ads embedded in the video itself - I think yes, and significantly. I believe all the musicians here can understand how jarring an audible -6dB RMS ad can be while one is carefully and attentively listening to and appreciating music.
That's my opinion.

Hello,
Thanks for all the comments, I'm happy the track made someone's day better
I just noticed a few technical issues with the mix post so I figured I'd report.
1) My last two Bravely Default mixes seem to be posted under two different games, see screenshot:
2) There is a mistake in the lyrics that I made in my first submission email. I fixed it in my second submissions email, but never pointed that out (my bad), so the wrong lyrics got posted. This applies to both mixpost page and youtube video description.
Paragraph 4, the word in bold needs to be removed:
Sotiya forte distanda diverta nihanye.
(Sopranos/Altos) Maya farado.
(Tenors/Basses) Maya kavera nihaye farado. Sotiya forte distanda diverta nihanyama, fanimaya winasoye!
Thanks.

Greetings,
It's a pity I can't afford to commit to make a full track for this project, but since apparently you are in need of electric guitars, I can provide that. My strength is mostly in metal-like styles, but I can play most of the styles if I put in effort. Can write solos/riffs in case the song author is struggling with it.

Oh boy, there's a lot to address...
I'm still in progress of ordering my thoughts and ideas for the Liberi Fatali remix so apologies if it's just incoherent blabbing, but I will try to convey what I have so far. The style of choice would be my usual symphonic metal (with experience from these four remixed tracks - putting this out here just in case someone looks at my posted mixes and thinks "I can see metal alright, but absolutely no symphony") with more emphasis on the symphonic part (including full orchestra and four voice choir) and I was planning to stick closer to the source this time around instead of going hipster with the source as I usually do. A rough layout of the song I have at the particular moment is this:
A rather drawn out ominous and menacing orchestral/choral intro build-up with lots of references to the source, slow chord progression with dissonances (particularly in brass).
Guitars/drums/bass come in, tempo picks up, this part is more of a cover/rearrangement of the source with alterations.
A bridge section with various instruments exchanging melodic and con bravura solo sections? Not entirely sure, haven't thought too much about this yet.
Reprise (see point #2), leading to climax.
A rather sudden drop in energy (just like the source tune on its final chord), orchestra closes off the piece.
I am very welcoming to the idea of collaboration because, frankly, this is a very ambitious source to work on plus things I have in mind will require a ton of effort to pull off, so division of work would help a lot. There are a lot of things to do, and just to list a few...
Composition - I imagine this would be a rather step by step process where people can listen to drafts, give feedback and improve the piece.
Orchestra - I am using EWQL orchestral VST, which is sufficient, but there may be better alternatives that other people have. Additionally, if there's someone, who has a lot of experience in orchestral articulation and humanization, his/her input would be invaluable and make the piece a lot livelier.
Choirs - again, I an using EWQL symphonic choirs, but I bet there are great voices out there to fill the role. Or just better choral VSTs.
Drummers/bassists - both of these I usually have programmed, which is sufficient in most cases, but it's always better to have live recordings.
Guitars - guitar is one of my main instruments, but there's really a lot of stuff to record, including double-tracking, solos, solo backings, dives, clean chords and arpeggios, etc. etc.
Mixing/mastering - while I enjoy the challenge and I was getting the hang of symphonic metal mixing recently, it's a huge load of work and require hours to get it right without pushing important instruments into obscurity, I'd be very happy if someone helped out with this.
Ultimately, we would need some kind of place to chat and polish ideas, like an IRC channel, but that can easily be arranged at any point.
Let me know what you think of this plan. Currently I'm on holiday abroad until the 10th and might not be checking for replies every day, so bear with me.

As an addendum to the advice given above, I can offer some info that might help out you with this task - whammy bar affects all 6 (or 7/8) strings differently, e.g. if you lower the bar so that lower E is one tone down, the high E would be like 1/4-1/3 tone down (this probably also depends on the string gauge). Either way, when whammy bar is applied to a chord, it creates a dissonance between the notes, which is a very important characteristic of the whammy bar sound. The dissonance is very pronounced if you're using a distortion guitar sound. Just, if possible, try to apply pitchshifting before distortion in the plugin chain.

As I was wandering through this thread, I couldn't help noticing Scrap Brain Zone was not yet picked and now I feel like I should correct that by remixing it myself. If I understood the rules correctly, that theme is still eligible for picking, right? I can see this project was paused temporarily, but I'm posting this now because I know for sure I will forget to post it later.

Oh, finally some news on this thing. I will try out the demo sometime this week. Like I already suggested sometime during our PM exchanges, I am willing to master the music and the offer still stands, provided you like the way my stuff sounds. In case you need one more taste of the sound, my soundcloud can be found here.

Recently I've been composing (and getting paid for) music for an indie game. It's my first actual work and the process was quite simplistic - I send over music and I get paid, no official contracts whatsoever. However, I believe sooner or later I will have to somehow make this business official and align it with the law for various reasons. So I was wondering if anyone here could link me to some material regarding types of freelancer composer contracts or perhaps could provide some advice from personal experience. Thanks in advance! P. S. Not entirely sure if this was the right forum section to post into. Please move if it isn't.